Happy Cat says yay!
Yay, exams are over for at the very least another semester.
Should be blogging more in about a week once Remix and the engagement party are out of the way :)
I'll never have to deal with Javan Beans again, yay!
Google's unofficial motto was 'Don't be evil', a good motto most people would admit. That is, of course, until they contradict such a motto, and start being evil.
First it was censorship, then it was the stuff about scanning books, Google Earth's photos being security risk, inability to counter click-fraud on Adwords, the list goes on with the 'troubles' they've caused. Google Watch has more on this if you're interested.
Then you've got the whole 'we buy out everything' approach.
Recently Google bought FeedBurner. There was a bit of an uproar (sorry, didn't save the links) from a few bloggers who used Feedburner, they didn't want Google having that sort of power. Google would then be able to track content makers and through Google reader, the content readers. Thats some nasty privacy issues if you think about it.
The ironic thing is, I know of another company who has bought out a lot of other companies (and continues to do so), who is considered evil by millions of people - including the majority of its user base. They've been sued to hell over their lifespan, but are slowly changing their image to a 'friendly/decent' company. Microsoft.
Speaking of Microsoft, they've got this new product out, you may have heard of it. Vista.
One of Vista's best features was its fantastic search. Apple's OS X has the same sort of thing, dubbed Spotlight.
Apparently Google wasn't too happy with Vista's search, it was far too built into the OS, far too good, and was stopping them from implementing their own Google Desktop Search. So they bitched about it. Loudly. And its been brought to the Department of Justice, and Microsoft is being forced to change the way Vista handles its search.
Winxperts reports on it.
Okay, sure, Microsoft is apparently abusing its power to release features in its own products now. They've agreed to three things, the the one that stands out the most is point two. (emphasis is mine)
(2) The default desktop search program will be launched whenever Windows launches a new top-level window to provide search results. This will include an existing location on the Start menu that a user can select to display additional search results in a new window. Windows Vista also includes search boxes located in the upper-right hand corner of various windows in the operating system, such as Windows Explorer and the Control Panel. In these windows, when the user enters a query Windows Vista will continue to display the search results using the integrated desktop search functionality. Microsoft has agreed, however, to add a link that, if clicked, will launch the default desktop search program and display search results from that program.
What does that mean exactly? I'm not to sure, but it sounds like the search facilities in the Start Menu will have to pop out into another window. That defeats the point of having the search there at all!
Look, even if I'm wrong (please, please somebody prove me wrong on this one), Google has still over stepped their boundaries, and are moving into asshole territory.
Where is the complaints about Spotlight, doesn't it have the same level of integration?
The problem with all of this is how 'reliant' on Google's services/products I am.
So whats the solution? Go to another 'services' provider? What happens when they start 'getting evil', or worse….Google buys them out?
Realistically, I'm now looking at having to port as many 'services' over to open source (or writing it myself - any such products I'd release under CC licensing) and running on my own servers as possible.
This blog is already running on such software, rather than using Blogger.
This gets rid of the 'privacy' issues that plague Google (and for good reasons!), but then has the pitfalls of I have to maintain it, patch security holes, etc.
I was already looking at writing a webmail app (did you know GMail doesn't allow attachments with exe's in it? Even if they are Zipped, TARed, RARed, etc), I'd toyed with the idea of adding Calendar integration. Now I just need to write/find a decent RSS Reader, photo manager (I'd be willing to pay for one if it was good enough…), and 'web portal'.
Sigh. You know the worst thing? All my research for this post was done through Google.
One of the great things about WPF is how you're able to create great looking apps.
One of the sucky things about WPF is how you're able to create great looking apps suck within the standard WinXP/Vista borders.
It's not hard to turn off the borders, a simple WindowStyle="none" in the Window tag in XAML does the job.
The problem is, you then can't move or resize your window.
Okay, AeothLib takes care of the former, and I was trying to add the latter to AeothLib, when I came across 'ResizeMode="CanResizeWithGrip"'
'Fantastic', I thought, 'this is exactly what I want'. That was until I discovered how poor performance it is when 'AllowsTransparency="True"' is set.
Allowing transparency's is one of the main reasons you'd use no window style in the first place!
After exams/ReMix/engagement party, I'll actually add it into AeothLib.
(note, trying out Windows Live Writer Beta 2, as I was in my last post, so apologies for anything that's extremely screwed up. Too many P's…. Yay! Scape goats!)
Not sure why I haven't blogged about this yet, but the engagement party is drawing near and I thought I would.
It started with me doing the invitations…ugh, my fingers ache at the thought of the torture I put them through. Since chickz0r and I aren't able to afford a massive wedding (which she wants), we're going for massive engagement party instead.
To annoy me, the guillotine I had was inoperable - blunt bladey thing, I had to cut them all myself. It took such a long time. Maybe I should have just sharpened it, but nooo, I had to do things the hard way. Oh well, my fingers got exercise…which…is important, I have to fight off chubby fingers.
If you look closely, you'll notice that its a rather odd invitation design. Well, its a rather odd party we're trying to have. A costume party infact!
This has annoyed nearly everybody over the age of thirty, although I've managed to convince my mum to come in costume, and she's done a very good job of it.
Back to the torture of my fingers…after that I discovered our printer wasn't picking up the envelopes, so I had to write the addresses (and 'return to sender' addresses). Then chickz0r and her mother decided we needed to include maps, which meant more printing, and worst of all, more cutting!
The final 'product', some 85 invitations
The party is coming up in a couple of weeks, and it should be a blast.
I'm busy getting my costume ready- its of mammoth proportions, but many photos shall be posted once its actually done, although I may wait until after the event so people get a surprise.
Update: Turns out some of the later ones, apparently, cover material we didn't, so they won't be on the exam. Exams tomorrow. Good time for people to find that out Ray
One of my fellow students had queries about the "Some Typical Exam Questions" document posted by our lecturer, namely, the answers seemed to be wrong.
This was the response
Yes some of those earlier sample solutions were done incorrectly. Hopefully the later ones are correctly done.
Ray
…what? So, the sample solutions with you provide sample answers for isn't right? And you can only hope that the later ones are correct?
I think its about time I say "KTHXBAI" to Monash, as this certainly isn't the first thing on the list of complaints…
I'll post the letter I'll send to the head of school (started writing it a few days ago) once it's finished.
